


Deep Cuts

by oisiflaneur



Series: Different Colors [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oisiflaneur/pseuds/oisiflaneur
Summary: Lapis moves in, but her barnmate has a regular visitor. Oddly enough, this isn't as irritating as she'd thought it would be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> well… this is a surprise. even to me. oooh man titles are definitely subject to change. 
> 
> this spawned out of one single idea for a conversation and now, here we are, and everyone is gay. this is a direct sequel, so peridot&amethyst are established, and i guess amethyst is just collecting girlfriends now! they can live in their weird art commune and she'll visit with snacks and stuff to do. in case it's not clear, this is going towards a big old polypile. tags will be added as necessary.
> 
> the last one was mostly done during a hiatus, so compared to that, this'll cover a lot more episodes. i also want to avoid rewriting them, so it's more sort of… the deleted scenes approach. i'll go up until 'room for ruby' at the very least! this chapter: lapis starts to have feelings about things again, camp pining hearts is peridot's comfort binge show, and chronologically we get up to around right before gem harvest.
> 
>  **content warnings** for this chapter are basically none! oh, uh. cartoon acoustics physics? i know that bubbles do not actually work that way, but comedy rules, man.

After the Rubies pack up and ship out to the edge of the solar system, the ambience at the barn returns to being peaceful, if somewhat tense. Lapis may have agreed to cohabitate with her former kidnapper, but nobody said that she had to be thrilled about it.

So she allows Peridot the run of the interior, for the most part. She likes being high up; she likes to be able to see the sky above her, even if she can't see the stars when sol is beating down, lighting up the atmosphere. She's trying to break the habit of looking for homeworld, anyway.

It also gives her the best view of the area, letting her see the fields around them and down the dirt road. Steven's assured her up and down that they won't be attacked out here, and Lapis knows she might possibly be acting paranoid, but it's hard not to when a pack of homeworld troops just crashed in their front yard.

But the only thing crashing in the front yard today is a pale purple quartz, having trotted up the path with Peridot in tow.

"Hey, cool moat." Amethyst drawls as she walks past the pond, swinging the closest foot down to splash a heel through the water. "Pearl never let me make one of these!" 

"Eeeh? A moat?" Peridot cants her head quizzically, turning to stare at it. "I thought that's what humans used to make artificial islands. This doesn't have any land in the middle?"

"A moat is a moat, as long as it has…" Amethyst grins and ducks down as she starts to glow, springing forward to launch herself out and into the water. When she surfaces, her face is considerably longer than it was before she splashed down, and she yells at her in a voice that's singsong but gravelly. "A _crocodile!_ "

Lapis finds herself snorting, peering down at the two of them from her perch on the roof.

"Hmmmm. That's actually not a bad idea. Something to keep intruders out of our pool. Perhaps some kind of submersible droid?" Peridot is cupping her chin in thought, her other hand wrapped around to grab her elbow. "That would function as a trap, _and_ you wouldn't have to stay transformed all the time."

The grin on Amethyst's face is even wider than before as she points at it, by dint of it being crammed full of fangs. "What, you _don't_ wanna smooch this snoot?" 

" _Amethyst!_ " She yells as her face turns dark green, spinning around to check the top of the building for her roommate.

She doesn't manage to in time -- or at least, that's the hope -- Lapis has already rolled away from the edge and covered her mouth to stifle her chuckling.

* * *

Lapis still isn't completely convinced that she'll ever want to call earth home, regardless of what Steven says. But she has to admit that he's right about some things: it's vast, and often beautiful, and _different._ No two places in it look exactly the same, not even the humans' artificial structures. When the barn starts to feel too small, Lapis takes to the sky and just _wanders_ , crisscrossing the continent aimlessly to take in the sights. She wonders sometimes what she would have made of the landscape had colonization been successful.

She doesn't typically bother trying to cross the ocean.

When she returns one evening, the barn is silent except for a tinny sound from the loft. Which is unusual -- Peridot is usually puttering around, talking aloud to herself, or rearranging her paint cans. 

She doesn't need to manifest her wings to pop her head up through the hole above the ladder.  "Um. Hello?" She tries awkwardly, staring at the both of them. Peridot fails to take her eyes off the screen, but wriggles her fingers in a subdued wave. 

At least Amethyst looks up properly, shooting her a grin and scooting over a fraction on the couch cushions. "Hey, Lapis! We're just finishing up this week's haul. You wanna join us? Gotta bring 'em back to Steven tonight, so if you miss it, poof!" She brings her fists together and then spreads her fingers away from her palms, miming a small explosion. "It's gone!"

Craning around, Lapis manages to catch the edge of the display, squinting slightly at what appear to be some kind of talking earth wildlife. "No. Thank you. I mean, it's nice of you to offer, but I'm not really interested in…"

"Earth's two dimensional entertainment art?" Amethyst interrupts her, and then bursts into laughter, nudging the smaller gem beside her. It takes Lapis a moment to realize that the words sound more like something that Peridot would say; _she's_ the one that Amethyst is teasing.

"Yes! Exactly." She agrees readily, dropping down past them to the floor of the barn. "You two have fun with that, though."

It _is_ fun, right?

* * *

If it wasn't, then why would Amethyst keep coming back?

Her presence isn't a _constant_ , but it's regular enough that even Lapis starts to find it familiar. Once every few days, maybe a seven of them at most, Amethyst appears in the loft, a collection of colorful cardboard cases in tow. It takes a few of these visits for Lapis to piece together the mechanics of the ritual ( because she's most definitely not _interested_ , so she can't observe too blatantly ) but these boxes must hold some kind of earthling variant of crystal recordings. 

At first, Lapis thought it might be a form of mind control, since putting one of them on the screen is just about the _only_ thing that makes Peridot go still and quiet. It was like she went into a trance. And sometimes she'd _swear_ that it was the same material she'd overheard just the day before.

But it does't have that effect on Amethyst; she snorts and hoots and hollers at the entertainment. She actually _talks back_ to the recordings. Despite the fact that they can't possibly be live broadcasts, and the voices from the machine can't hear her. It's inexplicable.

She quashes a stray thought that sounds an awful lot like _'it's not all that different from talking to a mirror'_.

* * *

But for a while, the visits seem to dry up. More out of curiosity than pity, Lapis gravitates over to the loft when she hears the machine turned on regardless, sitting on the couch while the other gem sits a few inches away from the screen and mouths along with most of the dialogue. The only time she looks away is to turn back to Lapis and explain something about the fictional events unfolding in front of them: she dedicates most of these to the interpersonal relationships, but some are simply pointing out when something had made Amethyst laugh.

Peridot assures her ( despite Lapis not particularly needing assurance on the matter ) that Amethyst is simply busy with Crystal Gem duties. 

"Not that she's too busy for us!" She corrects herself at one point. "It's just that they've been quite focused on tracking and capturiiiiiiiiing…"

She trails off when Lapis levels a glare at her, and doesn't bring it up again.

Instead, she throws herself into her new _projects_ , which are equal parts creative and decorative. Over the weeks, the barn slowly gets more cluttered. Peridot keeps collecting what looks like junk, rearranging it, naming it, _introducing her to it..._

"You should give it a try!" She proclaims with a smile, holding her arms out in the air as she hoists the television from the loft and onto the back of the truck she'd previously lodged in the wall. Stepping back on the ground below, she holds her fingers up in a rectangle and peers through it to look at her handiwork. "Hey. Do you think Amethyst will like watching things out here more?"

Ignoring the suggestion, Lapis looks up at the truck. "What if it rains? Doesn't that thing need to be inside?"

"Of _course!_ " Peridot slams her fist into the opposite palm, practically diving back into the barn. She emerges a moment later with a long pole slung over her shoulder.  Throwing it up and spreading her hands, the pole snaps open with her movements into a webbed fan, and drifts up onto the truck. "Waterproofing measures! I should've _known_ that I could count on a Lapis Lazuli to point out what needs to be done with regards to water."

 _That_ gets her thinking. 

Turning to cast her gaze over the building she's going to be calling home for the forseeable future, Lapis purses her lips as she considers the potentials. "You know what? Maybe I will try making some of your… What do you even call this stuff?"

Peridot's grin doesn't falter a whit as she exclaims with delight: "I have _no idea!_ "

"Mmmm."

It comes to her some time later, when she's relocating some wildlife from the pond ( nothing so large or dangerous as a crocodile, but some frogs and newts have moved in during the summer ) into the long, thin tank Peridot has helped to build along the side of the wall that had partially collapsed. Floating helplessly in a ball of water, one of the bullfrogs seems to look her straight in the eye, and croaks at her irritably. The bubbles float from its mouth to the top of the wobbling orb and pop, letting out a gurgling sound that brings a smile to Lapis' face.

"Meep morp." She says back to it.

It'll work, she figures. It's silly, but so are their weird little arrangements. Even when she's tying a string around a baseball glove, Lapis still doesn't really _get_ it, but it passes the time. And it seems to keep Peridot happy.

And, once the presentations are made, she isn't entirely sure why Amethyst doesn't think the projects are funny. _Occupied_ manages to even _her_ smile, but the Steven seems to be the only one impressed.

* * *

Lapis has to admit that knowing Jasper has lost her form gives her a sharp sense of satisfaction; imprisoned by the Crystal Gems, she won't be free again until _they_ decide she is.

And this time, it's somebody who actually _deserves_ it. 

However, she's not entirely certain how she feels about Amethyst being the one to do it. Watching Peridot reenact the battle for what must be the third time, she finally decides that it might be the next best thing to having done it herself.

"And _then_ she tried to fuse with one of those corrupted gems! Can you imagine? How desperate do you have to _be!_ " Peridot cackles as she flops down into a sit, exhausted from her description.

Lapis merely grunts noncommittally, staring at the wall taken up by the aquarium. She's distracted thinking about Amethyst's fusion instead.

* * *

When Amethyst starts coming by again, she's in a considerably better mood. It must be easy, Lapis thinks idly, when something _good_ actually comes out of your fusing. 

Never _anything_ remotely like a rigid schedule, but the other two fall back into the rhythm they had developed before Jasper made landfall. Amethyst comes trodding down the road ( or hopping, or flapping, depending on the day ) and clambers up onto the truck, before throwing her weight down on the pillows she's slowly moved onto the platform. Some days, Peridot heads down the path to meet her, their shared return signified by a small trail of dust clouds. At least one of them almost _always_ carries more of those flat television boxes. 

And, bit by bit, Lapis starts to fall into step with them. She's not sure when she started timing her flights to match the visits, but it somehow feels proper to leave them be. Besides, by the time she's gotten bored with her jaunts and coasted back down on the breeze towards the barn, things have usually quieted down somewhat.

Not _this_ time, apparently.

"Hey there, Lapister! We're getting through all Steven's old Gisney movies." Amethyst kicks one heel idly against the couch, her other leg folded on the cushions. Contrary to when Lapis had joined her for that camp show, Peridot's curled up on the couch as well, her head propped up on the other gem's knee.

Lapis isn't entire sure what to call the feeling that twinges through her ribcage.

When she climbs onto the floor proper, she can see that the screen is nothing but black, with white text rolling past. "You just missed the best one! It has monsters and weird talking stuff!" The shine as Amethyst's body collapses lights up the attic for a moment, before she reappears as a copy of the television, waving around the antennae on top of her 'head'. "Everything has a face, just like this! Humans have the freakiest imaginations."

The transformation leaves Peridot's head dropping onto the couch proper, and she squawks quietly, finally tearing her eyes from the words onscreen. "Amethyst! You have to _warn_ me!"

"That's alright." Lapis says uncertainly, unsure of what to do with herself. So she stays standing where she is as Amethyst returns to her usual form and steps over towards the television. 

Amethyst busies herself with the pile of scattered boxes next to the machine, humming quietly before she yells and holds one aloft. "Oh! I know! Since Lappy's here, let's do this one!" 

"Oh, I'm not sta-"

But then Amethyst is grabbing her elbow and grinning up at her, waving the object of discussion in her face. "Come on! I know you don't _totally_ hate this stuff. And this one's about a girl who lives in the ocean and then moves in with a princess on the land! Just like you!" And _then_ she's nudging Peridot, her bangs doing little to obscure her sly expression.

"... I guess I don't have anything else really pressing to do right now." Lapis finds herself admitting cautiously, almost before she's aware that her mind has been made. 

"Great!" The smile on Amethyst's face is almost brighter than the light from her transformation. It's strangely magnetic, and Lapis finds herself settling on the couch on the other side of Amethyst without any real complaints. 

She doesn't even frown when Amethyst sprawls out, and she has to shift over and sit on the armrest, balancing her weight.


End file.
